Hey guys. I've won the lottery... Well in a way i did. I stumbled upon a pair of 1st gen S&S Headers with SEVERAL cracks. No wonder why everybody was upset when these things first came out.

For those of you out there with 1st gen headers. What did you do to deal with this? I have a buddy who is really good with welding and fabrication and i'm going to have him reweld just about everything but as you can see some of the cracks are over the actual piping and not just the welds.

And for those who had these installed on your cars how long were they on before they cracked and what did you do about them cracking? I am excited to put these on but if they are going to crack again then i might have to reconsider things.

Oh yeah, and if you thought i was guna leave you hanging without pics. Here they are.

 

that sucks man. hope your buddy can fix that up for you.

 

I have the first Gens which were bought about the same time as 3 other local members. Everyone's eventually cracked except mine. I ordered mine without the ceramic coating, as I added a bung, cleaned up the inside welds and matched the ports a tad bit. I also had a bead welded around each pipe on the outside of the flange. S&S only welded the pipes from the inside of the flange. I had everything ceramic coated after the work was done.

I can't say how significant it is to have the outside of each pipe welded, but again I have not cracked my headers.

Another local member with cracked headers had his cracks welded and they just went bad on him again after some time, so re-welding the cracks can just be a band aid but not a fix.


The only other thing I can think of are the engine mounts. If you have a higher mileage car, check for worn mounts that could allow excess engine vibration. My cars mileage is only 60k as of now. Between the extra welding that I did, plus having good engine mounts, "MY Guess" is that these two items are key contributing factors to prevent cracked headers.


I have pictures of the welding work, but they are currently stuck on my desk top CPU that we haven't unpacked and fired up since we moved recently. We've got 4 laptops in the house so not too much motivation to get that PC back up, except to copy off my picture folder.

 

My first batch have cracked multiple times, I just fix them, but it's getting old. Next time they crack again, I'll get every weld redone. Hopefully it will keep them from cracking.

What's with the extra header?

 

I have the 1rst gen S&S headers that Dave gave me when I bought his car and haven't installed them since I've heard about the cracking issue, so they are as yet still brand new in the box. If I ever do decide to install them, I might go the route Glen did with his headers.

 

I got this set from a buddy and S&S sent him a replacement passenger side header so i have two of them!


Any more input?

 

I ground away my ceramic coating and had a buddy weld the cracks shut...we'll see what happens! Haven't had time to install yet...

RMMGS4: If you ever get that computer out, I'd like to see the welds myself. I'd have mine welded again before I put 'em in to help ensure they don't crack.

 

I wish there was a way to make sure these dont crack again. I have a feeling after they are installed no matter where it was rewelded. New cracks will form because S&S used to thin of piping. (14ga).

 

It wouldn't hurt to do what I did.

Oh and you are boosted like me, so you will love the improvement in power. The RMM SC is very happy with the increased breathing

 

I'm out of town this weekend, but maybe I can set it up next week.

Basically just weld a bead completely around each tube on the outside of the flange. Couldn't hurt and a cheap investment to pay now vs. later.

 

That's what I was thinking...yeah, if you could shoot a pic, that'd be great! I'm gonna have it done as long as they're still uninstalled.